


No Matter What

by Rick Grimes (RyloKen)



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Accidental Incest, Affairs, Age Difference, Alternate Universe - No Zombie Apocalypse, Angst with a Happy Ending, Barebacking, Bathroom Sex, Blow Jobs, Brother/Sister Incest, Cheating Lori Grimes, Cunnilingus, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Divorce, Divorced Lori Grimes/Rick Grimes, Drunk Sex, Dubious Consent, Emotional Manipulation, F/M, First Time, Fucking, Hangover, Heavy Drinking, Mentions of Threatened Abortion, Mentions of Threatened Adoption, Minor Lori Grimes/Rick Grimes, Not Made By Rick, Older Man/Younger Woman, Or The Sister, Responsibility, Rick Loses Everything, Rough Kissing, Rough Sex, Semi-Public Sex, Sibling Incest, Suicidal Thoughts, Ultimatums, Unplanned Pregnancy, Wall Sex, Wine, Yet..., alcohol related amnesia, because they're both drunk, i guess?, or does he?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-23
Updated: 2020-10-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:00:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27164912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RyloKen/pseuds/Rick%20Grimes
Summary: People in their neighbourhood liked to commend him on the life he had, on how easy he made everything look, but they were only seeing what was tossed out there to be seen.The truth was, Rick’s life was a fucking joke, and he was getting good at pretending, at hiding that he was dying inside despite the smiles he put on for the people he was forced to associate with because it was expected of him.And thenshewas there, and he finally realised what had been missing the entire time.His soul.
Relationships: Minor or Background Relationship(s), Rick Grimes/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 32
Kudos: 37





	No Matter What

༺✬༻❀༺♡༻☽❆☾༺♡༻❀༺✬༻

_When the world's not perfect,_   
_When the world's not kind,  
If we have each other then we'll both be fine.  
I will be your lover, and I'll hold your hand,  
You should know I'll be there for you._

[If We Have Each Other - Alec Benjamin](https://youtu.be/D9F50YtFejo)

༺✬༻❀༺♡༻☽❆☾༺♡༻❀༺✬༻

People in their neighbourhood liked to commend him on the life he had, on how easy he made everything look.

An ideal marriage with a pretty wife.

A well-mannered son.

A blossoming career.

Well-manicured lawns.

Picture perfect from the outside but they were only seeing what was tossed out there to be seen.

The truth was, Rick’s life was a fucking joke.

His marriage was a farce, his wife a cheating whore who couldn’t wait to jump into bed with his best friend, _his chosen brother_ , and then toss it back in his face that it was all him, that she was lonely and he was never there.

He often wondered how stupid she thought he was, as if he couldn’t figure out that she was fucking a guy who had the same job he did and worked the same hours.

His son was a blessing, truly, and the only good thing to come out of his misguided choice to slap a ring on Lori’s finger and profess for the church full of family and friends that he was a complete and utter fool.

And a blind one at that.

His career was more an escape, and though he did enjoy helping people, it had become a way for him to pretend he had his shit together.

He didn’t.

And the lawns, well, they weren’t anything anyone else didn’t already have.

Picture perfect was a lie, and he was just getting good at telling it.

For years he pretended that he wasn’t being stepped out on, that his son didn’t get this look in his eyes like he knew his mum was sleeping with the wrong guy and that his dad was pathetic.

For years he put up with it, let it slide, whatever.

Then he couldn’t hide it anymore, not when she slapped him with divorce papers and smiled as she informed him that Carl was going to be staying with her permanently and that he had better pay alimony and child support on time.

_Or else._

Or else, like there was anything left of him to take.

His heart was broken, his dignity gone, and she already had his balls in a jar on her shelf.

Like a good boy though, he gave her what she wanted, signed his life away, signed away his rights to his son, gave up three quarters of every pay check so she could keep buying the shit she liked buying.

The apartment he ended up moving into didn’t even have separate rooms.

He slept two steps away from where he ate, he made breakfast three steps and an awkward shuffle away from a bathroom that was barely more than a cupboard with a pot to piss in.

He was two floors up from a cheap Chinese joint that made really good wonton soup and always gave him free sides when he looked the other way and pretended not to notice the very much illegal dealings they had going on in the background.

The retirees, who couldn’t speak a lick of English, treated him better than his ex-wife ever had so he was more than happy to drown himself in fried rice and pot-stickers and sleep through the backroom poker games they put on in their…well…backroom.

They didn’t ask all that much for rent either, which was a blessing considering some weeks he didn’t have two pennies to rub together.

He tried not to complain though.

He was still invited places, still got treated like he hadn’t been raked across the coals by a she-beast hellbent on seeing him bleed.

Cry too.

And he did a lot of that.

It wasn’t just him that suffered though, that lost seemingly all freedom and sense of family.

He was a grown arse man, sure, but his parents sure as shit weren’t going to let their _precious little girl_ stay in a tiny apartment that smelled like take-out and Febreze.

It was all a show to hide the simple fact that they didn’t actually give two shits about her, but woe betide the one who brought it up.

So he was cut off from seeing her until he sorted his shit out, until he got himself a nice big house again with a room just for her to stay in.

He knew for a fact she’d happily sleep in a bathtub if it meant seeing him, and he tried not to think too hard about that one party they’d gotten stuck at where she’d done just that and he’d had to drag her arse outside, all the while trying to keep his own arse from stumbling over his two left feet.

There was a good age gap between them but he never noticed it when she was right there, knocking back beers like she was one of the boys and laying out arseholes who thought it was perfectly fine to feel her up.

It was another thing he turned his law-abiding eye to, the fact that she was too young to be drinking at all.

Maybe their parents knew, but it was doubtful.

Still, he missed her, missed the air he could finally breathe when she stepped into a room and smiled that sunshine smile.

And then ruined the visage of innocence and sweetness by opening her mouth to call someone – usually Shane – a cunt.

He’d always told her off for it in the past but there wasn’t much he wouldn’t give up to hear her now, laughing and smiling and politely threatening to eviscerate the next bastard who thought her arse was free real estate and primed for staking a claim.

It was why, after six months of crying himself to sleep to the sounds of angry Asians slapping down poor hands and lamenting their bad luck to the gods above, he agreed to go home when Lori came pleading with him to try again.

Apparently, Shane had skipped out, probably no longer interested now that he had her to himself, and she was desperate to fix their home for Carl’s sake.

She was ready to forgive him, and he missed his son and sister just enough to reign in his anger at such a remark.

_The audacity!_

He moved back in, filled the spare room with his things and refused, point blank, to pretend to be happy with her when in their own home.

He’d do it for their friends, for the colleagues he didn’t even really like all that much, and he’d do it whenever they went out and were likely to be seen, but he would never share her bed with her again.

It was probably why he tripped and stumbled, why he fell right into the trap he hadn’t known was lain the whole time.

He was so against it, so adamant it wouldn’t happen, whether it was for Carl's sake or not, that he didn’t even see it until it was too late and he was several weeks into sleeping back in the master bedroom with her taking the blankets at night and kicking him in her sleep.

That probably should have been his first sign.

And while he’d failed at keeping himself out of her bed, he was going strong at fending off her advances.

Truth be told, he didn’t think he’d even be able to get it up if he let her have her way.

 _But they were working it out_ , they told everyone, and everyone just smiled and congratulated them and went on pretending nothing was wrong in the world.

But it was.

He was getting good at pretending, at hiding, so good he started thinking it was real.

He was dying inside, despite the smiles he put on for the people he was forced to associate with because it was expected.

And then _she_ was there, and he finally realised what had been missing.

_His soul._

She blew into his home with a smile and a laughing _hey shithead_ directed at literally anyone who fit the description.

He couldn’t keep himself from going to her, tossing what little dignity he had left to the wind and rushing her as if he hadn’t seen her in years and had thought her dead.

She was solid in his arms, real and right and _right there_.

And she said nothing as he cried into her hair, smothered her with his arms and clung to her like a bloody leech.

She just held him back, as tight as she knew he needed, and withheld the storm he didn’t know was coming.

It took its time, that storm, and it was the eye before he ever even knew it had blown in to begin with.

She stayed as she always did, a light in his life as she tackled Christmas shopping as if it were a military operation, and cackled manically over the absolutely terrible present she’d decided to get Lori.

A hardback copy of; _A How to Guide to_ _Healthy Relationships for Dummies_.

Rick didn’t know whether to laugh with her or tell her to put it back, so he did nothing, and thought it was worth it when the big day came and all the smug colouring slipped right out of Lori’s bitch of a face.

His sister, she was a cunning bastard when she wanted to be and he was thankful she was always on his side.

Christmas was there and then it wasn’t, and then New Years was upon them and he found he hated it just the same as every other year.

Dragged along to some bullshit party with cheap food and cheap grog and really, really bad music.

_And the people…_

He still managed to get drunk though, and still managed to fuck everything up.

Not that he remembered much of anything the next morning, just that his mouth tasted like pussy he didn’t remember eating, the base of his dick was surrounded by a smudged ring of deep red lipstick and his pants were stained with what he hoped had spilled out of a condom he couldn’t find.

He decided then and there that he was going to stop drinking red wine, especially to excess.

He stumbled home, eyes blurred and sore and his head pounding, and only stopped long enough to fill the void in his stomach that had opened up after he’d fed a bunch of struggling flowers like a mama bird.

The Feng family set him right, hummed sagely as they served him dumplings and BBQ pork buns and dosed him up to his eyeballs in green tea and broth.

He felt like he was going to roll over and hibernate afterwards, but the roiling sickness of a night spent drinking and apparently eating nothing but some mysterious woman’s cunt was gone.

He slept like the dead when he finally got home, and didn’t wake up until dinner was served and his sister was halfway to falling asleep in her bowl of stew.

Carl got a kick out of it, so he chalked it up as a win and pushed it all to the back of his mind.

The new year had started and with it came the end of his sister’s visit.

He hated it, seeing her go, but was soothed just a little by her promise to come and see him as soon as she could.

That she promised with a whisper and a wink to try her hardest to convince their parents to let her take the gap year she was desperate to take so she could spend a few months with him before her freshman year of college started, helped him see her off without too many tears shed.

Things went back to the new normal.

He went to work to escape, he came home to a house that felt like a prison and he slept in a bed that was no longer his.

He wasn’t comfortable in his own skin anymore, and try as he might, he couldn’t get the feeling of rightness to fill him back up, to hold and stick and leave him smiling for no other reason than finally feeling alive.

He had Carl, but Carl was busy with school and his friends and when he was home, Lori monopolised his time and drove the knives in whichever way she could.

 _Why isn’t dad home?_ Because work is more important right now.

 _Why can’t dad go to that little league game I’m playing?_ Because he had to pick up a double and no one else could possibly take it.

 _Why isn’t dad home for dinner tonight?_ Because he prefers eating at the station rather than here with us.

Sometimes, he truly wondered how he didn’t just blow his own brains out.

Sure, they were _working it out_ , but he didn’t see it.

And then the tail end of the storm blew in and he knew.

He _knew._

It was five months into the year when he got the call from his sister that she desperately needed a place to stay.

Of course he said yes, and of course he did so without consulting anyone on the matter.

He would never turn her away.

And even when his parents called him that same night and railed on for two hours about how irresponsible _his sister_ – as if she wasn’t _their daughter_ – was and how she’d ruined her future, and how it was his responsibility to set her straight and _do the right thing_ , he never told her not to come.

How was he to know, when they never actually told him what was wrong?

Even if they had, he wouldn’t have changed his mind.

Not even when Lori screamed the house down and almost bloodied his ears with her objections to _that girl_ coming back into their home and being a further bad influence on Carl.

He wouldn’t relent.

He stood firm.

She was his sister, and he loved her above everyone else.

Sometimes even Carl.

The guilt always weighed heavily when he thought of it, but it wasn’t something he could help.

It was Carl’s tenth birthday when he realised just what storm had raged, just what damage had been done.

What damage _he_ had done.

It was a nice day, the sun high and the sky clear.

Kids ran around screaming and chasing each other, laughing and bumping into people and driving him right up the wall.

He picked a spot near the grill he wasn’t even allowed to man – because apparently everyone knew his balls were still gone – and he stayed there with a beer in hand and a dazed look on his face.

They talked around him, chuckling and patting each other on the backs as if golf averages and good deals on new cars were somehow wars won and lives saved.

He genuinely contemplated how much pain he would feel if he pressed his Colt to his temple and pulled the trigger between sips of his beer and absent smiles to the douchebags his ex-wife told him were friends of the family.

He didn’t even know these people.

And then it didn’t matter.

Nothing did.

Because there she was, radiant and beautiful and smiling and very, very much pregnant.

He should have been running to her, grin wide and tears in his bloody eyes, but instead he stayed stock still and stared, eyes wide and fingers going slack enough that his beer slipped free and soaked his shoes in hop-water.

It came back like a damned boomerang.

Children’s laughter gave way to screams of ecstasy, their playful chasing slipped away and turned into the hurried slap of skin on skin.

There were nails down his back, his fist full of dark hair; she tasted like sweet and sweat at her collarbone and her pussy was even better.

They both stunk of wine but the kisses were sober, the touches the worst kind of pure he didn’t think could exist.

She took him so well, clung to his broad shoulders and cried out with every single slam of his hips into hers.

_That fucking dress she’d worn._

Pushed up around her wide hips, panties hanging from her toes as he pressed her harder into the wall and fucked away her innocence as if they’d done it a million times before.

She’d worn dark red lipstick that night, and he’d never bothered to wrap his dick before he’d filled her with it.

His blood ran cold and he watched as she smiled, happy and full of sunshine as she cupped her slender fingered hands beneath the swell of a baby he should never have fucked into her.

He couldn’t swallow down the lump in his throat, and the fear left him weak in the knees.

Maybe…

_Maybe it wasn’t his?_

But the thought tasted like betrayal on his tongue and he pushed it away the second it was there.

Their eyes locked, for the first time, across the yard and he knew.

He _knew._

He moved then, beer and the boys that weren’t his forgotten as he crossed the divide between them and marched to what, he wasn’t sure.

His face must have shown something less than joy because by the time he was near, she was pale and her pretty smile was gone.

It made him feel wretched, somehow worse than the proof of what he’d already done to her.

Hurting her feelings hurt him more than destroying her future did.

_He was a monster._

And then he was right there and he didn’t hesitate.

For the first time in her life, she felt fragile in his arms, like she was the one who was made of glass and a stiff breeze away from shattering.

He held her so tight, buried his face in her lush hair and closed his eyes to the tears he felt burning behind the blue.

She clung to him, then, finally the one seeking comfort and reassurance and a warmth he didn’t think he had in him.

And right there, right between them, was the proof of his treachery, a bump that proved she wasn’t safe around him.

It was as it always was, though, when his mind reeled and his heart raced, that she was there to take his hand and lead him out of the dark.

No one stopped them as she walked two steps ahead, one hand in his and the other smoothing gentle circles atop her belly.

The party went on, and on, and it didn’t cease to exist until he was locked in the spare bedroom with her.

It should have been answers he sought, questions asked with determination and a steel resolve to find the truth, but instead, the second she turned around to look at him, so fucking small and unable to meet his eyes, it was her lips he went for.

He should have pulled away when she gasped and froze like a doe in the sights of a wolf, but he didn’t, couldn’t.

She felt warm beneath his hands, her hips still the same wide he remembered from that night, her back the same stretch of pale he’d pressed into a tiled wall, her mouth the same soft press against his own, a feeling that felt _right_.

They _fit_.

Like she belonged right there.

_Right there with him._

Air become something they both needed and he pulled away just enough to fill his lungs but not enough to put space between them.

He pressed his brow to hers and dug his fingers into her spine.

She shivered, whimpered, and it was a sound he remembered, a song from that night when they’d slipped away from the party and drenched themselves in sin.

It was a good thing neither of them were religious or they’d both be sweating at the collars about damnation and hellfire.

Would a father bless them forgiven if they knelt before his wooden window and confessed to fucking each other’s brains out in the bathroom of a swanky hotel?

Would he have to repent, to claim he felt nothing and didn’t want it again?

That’d be lying, and wasn’t lying a sin?

He’d rather burn.

His eyes opened slowly, caught hers and held.

They had the same eyes, slightly different in shape as hers were wider, rimmed in darker lashes that flicked up and gave her a feline look about her, but the very same blue.

He wondered if this was how he looked, when his eyes filled with tears that didn’t fall but collected on the rim and waited to spill over.

Even so scared and sad, she was breathtaking, and he held her tighter to him, their sin held safe and sound between them.

“Please don’t hate me.”

It was a knife to his heart, the first words she’d said to him since she’d stepped into his yard, his home, back into his life since the last time he’d seen her.

The tears spilled over with a crackly sob and he could do nothing but soothe her, his hands gentle as he smoothed them up her spine and over her shoulders to cup her pale face, to brush away her sadness with his steady thumbs.

“Never, sweetheart, I could never hate you.”

“Not ever?”

“Not ever, even for a second. How could I when I love you so much?”

The blue was lost to him, drowned by the sea of tears she began to cry.

He pulled her into his arms, held her tight and let her sob against him as her words came tumbling out and told him everything he needed to know.

_They had cut her off._

Had done so when she’d refused to get the abortion they'd tried forcing on her.

_They had kicked her out._

Had done so when she’d refused to give their baby up to someone else, someone not them.

She couldn’t do it, no matter how angry their father got, or how loudly their mother screamed.

She was a disappointment, a disgrace, the bane of their family and a mistake that shouldn’t have been born.

_A statistic._

And he knew it would only get worse if they ever found out the truth.

The thought alone was terrifying.

Her hair become wet with his own tears, soaked up the grief he felt over her facing all that alone.

He knew how their parents were, knew how easily they could dig the hooks in, could rake their claws through flesh and muscle to flay skin from bone with naught but words.

She spoke of sleeping on friends’ couches until she was completely cut off, until her accounts were closed and her cash ran out.

“Why didn’t you call me sooner, love?”

And it just brought forth more tears, and a wave of grief and guilt that threatened to swallow him whole when she sobbed and whispered and choked on the words.

_She didn’t think he’d want her._

_She thought he’d agree with their parents._

_She had to wait, wait until an abortion was no longer an option, wait, so that he wouldn’t be tempted to push her down the stairs for fear of losing her too._

It hurt, to know she was so afraid of such a thing, that she thought him even capable of such evil.

But then he didn’t know what fears she’d faced all by herself, what whispers her friends had filled her head with when they thought the father was some stupid frat boy who would think of his scholarship and reputation long before the life of an unborn mistake.

So he held her tighter, kissed her lips and burrowed his face beside her pulse.

She still smelled good, sweet and sunshine and nothing of the sin they’d committed.

She didn’t accept his whispered apologies because she didn’t regret what had happened between them.

Their embrace felt like home, and even when she braved his ire and made it clear she’d do it alone if she had to, they never broke apart.

Not until he moved to meet her eyes, moved to rest his hands upon the swell of her belly.

He couldn’t keep from staring at her, watching as his thumbs brushed up and down and back and forth on either side of her bellybutton.

He felt it, a shift, something like a ripple beneath his palm, light at first until it become an incessant nudge.

He couldn’t keep the grin from splitting his face, couldn’t keep his feet as he went to his knees and watched for a movement he knew she wasn’t far enough along yet to show.

The baby was strong, already, so damned strong, and responsive.

He laughed, delighted, and the nudge became a kick hard enough to make her scowl and thump him for encouraging it.

Everything else ceased to matter, to exist.

He looked up at her from his spot at her front, his knees digging into the carpet and his palms rubbing absently across her belly.

It was a moment, just a flash, and he was back there, cold tiles unrelenting beneath his knees as he hooked her leg over his shoulder and buried his face between her thighs.

He came back to a hand in his hair, gentle and combing through his loose curls as he hummed and leaned into the comforting touch.

She was home, his home, and he finally felt alive again.

His eyes slipped closed as he leaned forward enough to press a kiss to her belly, and to smile against her bump as his kiss was answered with a rather hearty kick.

Their kid was going to be a trouble maker, he just knew it.

He stood after a long moment, and once again rested his brow against hers, shared a long gaze that showed all the words they couldn’t say.

They’d always been good at that, speaking without ever opening their mouths.

They stared, and then they nodded, smiled and he knew she understood.

Whatever happened next, whether a falling out at home that would land them both in his once shitty apartment that came with questionable landlords but delicious bribes, an accident at work, or hell, _even the bloody apocalypse_ , he would always be there for her.

They would make it, and so would their kid.

He would make sure of it, no matter what.


End file.
